


Best and Worst

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Read My Lips [19]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay/ John Sheppard, “I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”<br/>― Marilyn Monroe</p><p>Rodney and John's first real meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best and Worst

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."  
  
An awkward silence followed Rodney's ringing tirade. As one, the rest of the scientists turned and filed out of the lab. Elizabeth stood in the corner, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed into a thin line.  
  
Most of the scientists were silent, except for Zelenka, who was muttering unintelligibly under his breath – probably cursing at Rodney in his mother tongue.  
  
Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, took a breath, changed her mind, and followed the rest of the scientists out.  
  
Rodney heard the door close behind her and groaned, closed his eyes. He'd done it again, been his usual insufferable and arrogant self. He'd had every right to defend his opinion as vigorously as he just did, because he was _right_ , and while he could get this portion of the project done on his own, if he wanted to sleep any time in the near future, he needed their help.  
  
He wanted to go to Atlantis more than anything, and he'd be an invaluable member of the Expedition, but if he couldn't handle being stuck on this base under the ice with those people when escape was just a helicopter ride away, how would he cope being stuck in another galaxy with them with no way home and likely no safe surroundings in which to take a break and get some space?  
  
And then he realized – someone had stayed behind. Tucked into the back corner, plodding away diligently at a laptop. All Rodney could see of the bravest one of all was the tops of spiky black hair.  
  
"Hey," Rodney said, "in case you didn't hear, I need some time alone right now so I can think and actually get something useful done."  
  
The typing didn't cease.  
  
Rodney peered closer at the hair. No headphones. Maybe those stupid little earbuds?  
  
"Hello! Unplug for a moment, you millennial brat, and pay attention for one damn second!"  
  
Still no response, more rapid typing.  
  
Rodney strode across the lab, furious and a little embarrassed (apparently his tantrum was not universally powerful) and came upon the interloper, who wasn't wearing headphones or earbuds and was instead solidly engrossed in his work. That was some dedication.  
  
"Hey, peon, I said _get out!_ "  
  
Still no response.  
  
Rodney felt his blood pressure raise. This level of insolence was intolerable.  
  
"Hey, moron, are you deaf?"  
  
And then the man started, looked up at Rodney in surprise. He smiled, and oh hell, he had a beautiful smile. Rodney remembered him, had seen him a few times at the SGC before he'd been shipped out to Russia. They'd never spoken before, but the man was obviously a civilian and, judging by the mathematical equations on his laptop screen, at least not a complete idiot. Every time Rodney had crossed paths with him in those concrete halls, the man had smiled at him.  
  
His smile – and Rodney's simmering fury at the unfairness of Sam Carter's hotness mixed with her ego – had kept Rodney warm on more than one Siberian night.  
  
And then the man blinked, looked around. Then he lifted his hands and – he signed.  
  
Sign language.  
  
The man actually _was_ deaf.  
  
Rodney felt heat flood his face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't speak sign language."  
  
The man nodded, reached for a notepad and scribbled something in sloping, blocky letters.  
  
_Where is everyone?_  
  
Rodney started to reach for the pen and notepad, but the man pointed to his eye, then his lips.  
  
Rodney was confused. Did he want Rodney to look at his lips? Because he'd be more than willing to do that, except because the man had a beautiful mouth, only that was highly unprofessional (like screaming at all of your colleagues outside of a life-and-death situation), and –  
  
"Oh. You can read lips?"  
  
The man nodded, smiled again.  
  
"I, uh...everyone left," Rodney enunciated, slowly and carefully.  
  
The man's brow furrowed. He shook his head, made a spinning gesture with his hand.  
  
Rodney tried again, even slower and more exaggerated.  
  
Frustration mounted in the man's expression and he sighed soundlessly, shook his head again.  
  
The door opened, and there was a thunderous stomp on the ground.  
  
Rodney spun around. "What was that for?"

A soldier – blue-eyed, dark haired, wholesomely good-looking – stood in the doorway. He signed rapidly and spoke at the same time. "John, Elizabeth is looking for you."  
  
John nodded and saved his work, stood up. Then he smiled apologetically at Rodney and signed, lips and hands moving even more unintelligibly than Zelenka's angry muttering.  
  
The soldier said, "Sorry, Dr. McKay, gotta go when Elizabeth calls. See you later. Good luck on your project," and Rodney realized the soldier was John's interpreter.  
  
Together, John and the soldier left the lab, and Rodney was left wondering what had just happened.  
  
At dinner that night, none of the other scientists would look at him, let alone sit with him, so he took a table for himself and ate quickly, wanting to get back to the lab as soon as possible. He was almost done when a shadow fell across the table. He looked up, and there was John – Dr. John Sheppard, mathematician, he'd asked around and a frightened lab minion had told him – and his soldier translator (whose name, if his uniform was to be believed, was Lorne).  
  
John smiled at him and held out a little plate with a square of brownie at it.  
  
Rodney stared at it, confused.  
  
"I know the line staff said they were out of dessert," Lorne said, and John's hands were moving, and it was like having double vision, looking at one man and hearing his voice come from somewhere else, "but they might or might not have been lying because they're excessively fond of Dr. Kusanagi."  
  
Rodney glanced at the table where the tiny woman sat with the other scientists. She turned her back on him pointedly when she caught him looking.  
  
"Thanks," Rodney said, and accepted the plate of brownie.  
  
John smiled and waved, and then he and Lorne walked away.  
  
Over the next few days, Rodney made a few grudging almost-apologies to some of the other senior scientists, and once Zelenka broke, the others came back with him, and they were up to their necks in calculations about the Ancient control chair. Test results for the ATA gene were coming in slowly, and the numbers were disappointing. The person with the strongest expression of the gene was a whiny Scottish doctor who would rather play with blood than help advance human knowledge of the universe. They needed a stronger expression of the gene, and soon, because the ship-out date to Atlantis was coming hard and fast.  
  
Rodney wondered if John would be coming along to Atlantis for a brief moment before he dismissed the thought outright. He'd heard the horrors of gate travel and there was no way John would survive if he couldn't hear where danger – or weapons fire – was coming from.  
  
And then John sat in the Ancient control chair (as a joke more than anything, apparently) and it lit up like a Christmas tree and all of the scientists were acting like it was Christmas Day and the whiny doctor was proving marginally more useful by taking some of John's blood and his own and synthesizing some kind of gene therapy so more people could work Ancient tech, and before Rodney knew what was happening, he was walking shoulder-to-shoulder with John Sheppard through the gate to Atlantis, and Rodney promised himself and the stupid little crush he was nursing deep inside that for John and Atlantis, he would be his best.


End file.
